From lifelong learning to m-learning

Abstract

The generation of students born with digital technology is now reaching universities. They bring with them a significantly different approach to learning. They are used to having access to multiple and instantaneous sources of information, multitasking and being socially connected to peers through mobile devices. The combination of mobile technologies and the new generation's 'digitally-enhanced' cognitive and social skills will lead to a change in the current concept of learning, its modalities, outcomes and chronology, and will require a significant pedagogical shift from current teachers who are not as digitally proficient and have an understanding of learning as an incremental, often individual, geographically and chronologically delimited process. The paper will examine the characteristics of the new student generation and mobile technologies and will outline the resulting pedagogical issues. Some implications for teacher education will be drawn and basic pedagogic principles will be put forward.